South’s Dry Spell Travels North

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) — The drought that has plagued the Deep South for more than a year is creeping northward, and officials in multiple states are restricting outdoor burning in the face of water shortages and forest fire risks from falling leaves and tinder-dry conditions.

Extreme drought conditions, the second-worst possible, have now spread into Kentucky, and severe conditions have returned to West Virginia and southwest Virginia, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“The last three months have sucked every bit of moisture we’ve had,” said Ben Webster, a fire staff assistant for the West Virginia Division of Forestry.

In eastern Kentucky, retailers are sending bottled water to drought-stricken Magoffin County after its primary water source, the Licking River, fell to low levels and residents were told to conserve tap water.  The county’s school system is serving meals on disposable plates with plastic utensils. Lunch trays have been temporarily shelved to save on dishwashing.

Kentucky also suffered through a severe drought a year ago, but “this is probably the worst that I’ve had to deal with,” said Joe Hunley, Magoffin County’s schools superintendent.

Tens of thousands of gallons of bottled water have been distributed through a fire department and a water company alone.  “We’re bringing water in daily and distributing it to those people who are in need,” said county health director Berti Salyer. “Of course, that’s just about everyone in Magoffin County right now.”

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Source: CNN

Pennsylvania Town Requests Voluntary Water Conservation

DUBOIS - Mayor John “Herm” Suplizio is asking City of DuBois residents to voluntarily conserve water, he announced at yesterday’s city council meeting. Mayor Suplizio called on residents to eliminate unnecessary water usage in order to maintain the city’s water supply. Water levels are currently down at the city’s reservoir.”We’re not at a mandatory level yet, but we’re not far away from it,” said Mr. Suplizio. “If people don’t have to wash their cars, it would be nice of them not to. Just little things … if you don’t have to hose down your garage, things like that.”

Source: The Progress

Drought forces farms to absorb higher fuel costs

NEW JERSEY-Months of drought at southern New Jersey farms have required more intense irrigation that preserved crops but inflated fuel bills in an expensive year for diesel.

A “weather and crop bulletin” from the federal Agriculture Department showed southern New Jersey sites received, from March through August, as little as 70 percent of the average rainfall. The report warned sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and squash are among the crops affected by the resulting heat stress.

Fruits and vegetables detach prematurely if temperatures are high enough, no matter what a farmer does, but Cumberland County farmer Tom Sheppard said the heat didn’t reach that point this year.

It’s a measure of farmers’ complex relationship with droughts that the weekend soaking from Tropical Storm Hanna wasn’t eagerly anticipated. Flooding can be a greater concern than wilting.

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Source: Press Of Atlantic City

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New Windsor, NY: Clamping Down On Water Use

Don’t count on municipal water for all your needs if you’re building in New Windsor.

The Town Board adopted a resolution Wednesday, directing the Planning Board “to encourage water conservation” when reviewing projects.

The resolution didn’t spell out what that means, but Supervisor George Green says it means things like requiring residential development builders to dig a well to supply things like a lawn sprinkling system. Green says the town often exceeds its daily limit on the water it takes from New York City’s Catskill Aqueduct. When that happens, any water above the limit costs the town about three times the normal rate, Green estimates — and the town has no legal or practical way to pass that cost along to customers.

“There’s no reason why treated water has to go on the lawns,” Green said.

Neither Green nor a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees use of the aqueducts, could say exactly what New Windsor’s rate is.

Green says down the road, the board might adopt a formal set of water-use restrictions for new development.

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Source: The Times Herald

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Pennsylvania Invites Public Input on State Water Plan

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, September 3, 2008 (ENS) - Pennsylvanians will have a chance to provide input on how the commonwealth manages its water resources during a series of public meetings to be held across the state this month.

The Department of Environmental Protection, along with members of six regional water resources committees, will accept testimony on the draft state water plan that is being developed in accordance with the Water Resources Planning Act.

Developing the plan is the first step in analyzing problems and needs associated with specific water-related activities, such as stormwater management, flood control and navigation, state water officials say.

“This document will serve as a blueprint that guides sustainable water use throughout the commonwealth for the next 30 years,” said DEP Deputy Secretary for Water Management Cathy Curran Myers.

By the end of 2008, the Water Resources Planning Act requires the DEP to develop a new state water plan that includes inventories of water availability, an assessment of current and future water demands, an evaluation of resource management alternatives, and proposed methods of implementing recommended actions.

“Our water resources are important to our economy and our quality of life, so it’s essential that we have a plan in place that ensures that we are good stewards of these precious assets,” Myers said.

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Source: Environmental News Service

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Huge underground water plant takes shape under NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — It requires enough concrete to build a sidewalk from New York to Miami and enough pipe to reach the top of the Empire State Building 140 times over. Workers carved out enough dirt from the ground to fill more than 100,000 dump trucks.

The colossal effort is a water filtration plant being built 10 stories beneath a Bronx driving range, a one-of-a-kind project intended to become a nearly invisible part of the city’s infrastructure.

But the plant has been anything but hidden so far.

The plant’s completion date has been pushed back six years, and its price tag, which early estimates put at $660 million, is now $2.8 billion. Costs, delays, seven-figure fines and a brush with a high-profile Mafia case have sharpened criticism of the city’s handling of a project that three city watchdog agencies and a group of community leaders are monitoring.

“The bottom line is that to build this water plant, the taxpayers are getting soaked,” state Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz said. “It’s like government at its worst.”

Despite the problems, officials say they will not be deterred from building what they see as the latest far-reaching project in a city full of grand monuments to civic imagination. Officials say they are making good progress despite a late start, and the cost increases are an unavoidable reflection of an industrywide trend.

“The need to complete important projects like the (water) plant has not diminished,” Deputy Mayor for Operations Edward Skyler said. “We can’t sit back and let others worry about the future.”

The federal government has ordered the city to build what will be its first drinking water filtration facility, and the project is believed to be the first subterranean water plant in the nation. Its magnitude is hard to overlook: The pit at Van Cortlandt Park is so deep that large cranes merely peek above the rim.

By 2012, if the schedule holds, a 12-foot-wide tunnel will feed the plant up to 300 million gallons of water a day — about a quarter of the city’s supply. The water will run through a complex set of steps that filter out contaminants: a chemical that makes unwanted particles clump together, air bubbles that push them to the surface to be skimmed off, and a barrier of sand and anthracite coal that strains out still more contaminants. Finally, ultraviolet light will kill bacteria and viruses small enough to have squeezed through the various filters.

New York is one of the few big U.S. cities that doesn’t filter its drinking water, long a point of pride here. It does add chlorine to disinfect its water, fluoride to help prevent tooth decay and other chemicals that reduce acidity and prevent metals such as lead from leaching from pipes.

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Source: The Associated Press

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Commission requires gas drillers to obtain approval for water use

CHENANGO COUNTY – The Susquehanna River Basin Commission announced last week that as of Oct. 15, natural gas companies will be required to obtain prior approval before using water for drilling purposes.

The Susquehanna River Basin covers territories in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The agency was set up to “enhance public welfare through comprehensive planning, water supply allocation, and management of the water resources of the Susquehanna River Basin,” according to its mission statement.

Prior to the announcement last week, SRBC regulations required prior approval of water withdrawn from the river basin area if it exceeded 100,000 gallons a day, or 25,000 gallons a day for consumptive use.

“This is the first time the executive director has ever imposed such a regulation on an entire class of projects,” said SRBC Director of Communications Susan Obleski. Executive Director Paul Swartz is authorized to add the additional provisions because of the possibility the gas drilling could have an “adverse, cumulative adverse or interstate effect” on water resources, Obleski explained.

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Source: The Evening Sun

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IFC CEO Says Public-Private Partnerships Can Avert Water Crisis

STOCKHOLM-IFC Executive Vice President and CEO Lars Thunell said today an opportunity is emerging for the public and private sectors to collaborate on solutions to the world’s critical water and sanitation challenges.

Speaking at the conclusion of the 2008 World Water Week conference, Thunell said governments and businesses worldwide now see a strong economic incentive to work “as partners” to ensure a sustainable supply of clean water. Partnerships between the public and private sectors could help prevent the specter of a “food, fuel, and water crisis in an increasingly populated world,” he said.

Providing clean water and sanitation services is not only a business opportunity but also an opportunity to improve lives. Thunell said businesses have begun to recognize the possibilities. Investors see an opportunity in the $450 billion global water sector: stocks in that sector are performing strongly worldwide. Private firms also regard water supply as a business risk and are tackling it as an integral part of their risk-management strategy.

“I believe the moment is right,” Thunell said. “We can avert a crisis –as partners, working together.” He said IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, will do its part by investing in companies that pursue opportunities in water conservation and quality, and by fostering public-private partnerships in the water sector.

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Source: WebWire.com

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New York water company fined for sending too much water to New Jersey

ALBANY - United Water New York has been fined $10,000 by the state Department of Environmental Conservation for releasing too much water to New Jersey. The company has already paid the fine and will be able to avoid $7,500 more in penalties if it adheres to the terms of a consent order with the DEC, agency Commissioner Pete Grannis said yesterday.

The excessive releases were made from Lake DeForest reservoir in Clarkstown, which eventually flows into Lake Tappan and the Woodcliff Lake and Oradell reservoirs in New Jersey.

The DEC ruled in February that United Water had exceeded the release limits set by a state-issued permit. The company is required to release 9.75 million gallons of water per day in the stream above the intake valves of the Nyack village Water Department. The DEC determined that United Water exceeded its permit limits by 231 million gallons between June 1, 2007, and Sept. 22, 2007.

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Source: LoHud.com

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Putting water ahead of natural gas

New York- Major energy companies are seeking to drill for natural gas New York’s Marcellus Shale formation.

However a large chunk of that area is the 2,000-square-mile watershed where New York City gets its water, which comes unfiltered through the city’s reservoirs and aqueducts to nine million people, or roughly half the state’s residents. That raises the obvious questions: Should there be gas drilling in the watershed and, if so, can it be done without imperiling the federal waiver that has allowed New York to avoid building a filtration plant that would cost $10 billion to $12 billion?

Mr. Gennaro, a geologist who has studied petroleum engineering, said the answers are an emphatic “no” and “no.” And he said that the State Legislature and Gov. David A. Paterson, dazzled by the prospect of gas-industry riches, have been negligent in not ruling out development in the watershed. Sophisticated new wells using hydraulic fracturing use a million gallons of chemically treated water to break up subterranean shale and release the gas inside. Over the next two decades, there could be thousands of wells upstate.

“This is an activity that is completely and utterly inconsistent with a drinking water supply,” he said. “This cannot happen. This would destroy the New York City watershed, and for what? For short-term gains on natural gas? We’re not saying no exploration for natural gas anywhere in New York State. We’re saying the part of New York State that is the New York City reservoir system should be off limits to this kind of activity.”

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Source: New York Times

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